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Namibia

Constitution of Namibia

Resource Type: Constitution

Year: 1998

This constitution is available in English.

Resource Type: Standing Orders

Year: 2005

This document is available in English.

ALP dissemination in Namibia

Prof Robert Mattes gave a presentation to a well attended Symposium for Civil Society on Recent Research on African Legislatures: Namibia in Comparative Perspective hosted by the Namibia Institute for Democracy (NID) in Windhoek on 30 March 2012. The ALP presentation was on Institutionalising Democracy in Africa? Assessing the State of Legislatures.

This report presents the “first findings” from the African Legislatures Project or ALP. The report is based on the preliminary coding and analysis of data obtained from research in six countries—Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa (MP survey findings from South Africa are not presented as that element of the project is still in progress). Because the purpose of ALP is to achieve a comparative understanding of legislative institutions across Africa, and is funded from multiple sources, we have adopted the practice of including data from as many countries as possible when we present findings from the project. Field research for ALP began in late February 2008 and is expected to continue through the end of 2010 as the work proceeds seriatim in 18 African countries.

Namibia gained its independence from apartheid South Africa on 21 March, 1990, after a long and protracted liberation struggle. In terms of United Nations Resolution 435, under a United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG), an internationally-supervised election (using the Proportional Representation [PR] system) for a Constituent Assembly took place in December 1989. This process produced a multi-party legislative body, tasked with drafting the supreme law for the new nation. The drafters rapidly produced a Constitution lauded for its vision and strongly-anchored basic freedoms and human rights. Eschewing further expenses and delays, the Constituent Assembly transformed itself into the nascent democracy’s first National Assembly (NA), consisting of 72 elected and six appointed Members of Parliament.